Monday, January 16, 2012

it was bound to happen. help!

i swear my heart physically hurts. i just cut up a batch up "siren" that i made last night. it behaved well, gelled through and so i just didn't see this coming. i've made "siren" five times now, with no issues whatsoever.

this morning, there are dark spots on almost every bar as i cut them. to me they feel exactly the same as the other normal portions of the soap, not soft or crumbly and no zap at all. i just have no idea why this happened and in my many years of soapmaking i have to say i've never seen anything like this before.


i'm truly gutted.

it's only happened in the pink portions and since the white part is unscented, i'm wondering if it might have something to do with the essential oils not being mixed in properly? other than that, i don't have any ideas on what it could be. if any of you soapers out there have seen or experienced this before, please, please comment. i need to prevent this from happening again because i may very well have to scrap this entire batch.

also, perfect timing for the dish forum to be down, isn't it?

(now i'm off to make a tent with my blanket and sulk in there)

8 comments:

Donna OShaughnessy said...

This is so weird. The same thing happened to me last week for the first time. I used French red clay to color and only Frankincense EO. In fact our bars look very similar. The spots have stayed the same now after 10 days so I decided to shave them up and make laundry soap out of them but I too would love to know what others think. Don't stay under the blanket too long, screwy soap ain't worth it :)

twobloomsdesignstudio said...

I'm sure why it happened but it looks pretty still. Maybe the EO's didn't fully mix? I know being trying to get on the dish forum all day.

Michelle

Jennifer Young said...

So wish I could help you but I have never seen anything like this before! Please let us know what you come up with!! xo Jen

roxta said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Still no ideas yet but hopefully the Dish will be up soon and I can see if anyone on there can help. xx

Celine Blacow said...

Not seen anything like this exactly but I have seen spots in soaps and the consensus of opinion was that the fragrance wasn't mixed in fully. If you do a tongue test on the actual spots, is there anything, even a taste?

roxta said...

Hi Celine, I did a tongue test on the spots for zap and there was nothing. The taste is the same as the rest of the soap, slightly salty but nothing else that really jumps out at me. At this point I'm going to assume it's the essential oils not being mixed in properly until I can come up with another explanation. xx

Cocobong Soaps said...

I'd say this is a something that happened during the gel phase from what it looks like. Let me research some more and I'll get back to you

Susan Mann said...

Hiya...

I had a honey rose soap do something similar a few years ago. No tongue zap. I'd used pink clay to colour, straight pour no layers, EO only, and always gel. I wondered if it was adding cool oils at trace, and since then I warm all my trace oils, honey etc. I never did find out what it was, but I haven't had the problem repeat since. I'm looking forward to finding out what the Dishers offer.

My best - Susan